1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an energy management apparatus for managing energy to be supplied to a system, to which a paid energy resource can be supplied from outside, which is provided with two or more functional device units realizing a specific function using the input energy and satisfies an external request using at least one of the two or more functional device units, so that supply of energy to the functional device units can be controlled.
2. Related Art
In recent years, various techniques have been developed in terms of reducing energy consumption and the like in vehicles. For example, so-called hybrid vehicles have been developed, which are equipped with an internal combustion engine and an electric motor as main engines. In such a hybrid vehicle, however, the vehicle interior cannot be heated using the heat generated by the internal combustion engine when the internal combustion engine is not in operation. To cope with this, it has been suggested a heat pump be separately installed in such a hybrid vehicle so that the heat pump is actuated by the electric motor.
For example, JP-B-3745677 discloses a technique in terms of reducing energy consumption in vehicles. According to this technique, whether the regenerative energy during deceleration (hereinafter referred to as “deceleration regenerative energy”) should be used for electric generation or for driving of the compressor of the on-vehicle air conditioner, is determined in accordance with the charge efficiency of the battery.
When a vehicle is capable of performing heating using a heat pump, in addition to heating using the heat of the internal combustion engine, it means that the vehicle has two functional device units that can realize the function of heating the vehicle interior. However, no principle has been established regarding which of the functional device units should be preferentially used.
Not only the hybrid vehicles mentioned above but also those systems which are provided with two or more functional device units for realizing a similar function generally suffer from the lack of principle that can direct which of similar functional device units should be supplied with energy to satisfy a certain request.
According to the technique described in JP-B-3745677 mentioned above, even when a vehicle is equipped with a solar photovoltaic power generator and the battery of the vehicle has been charged by the solar photovoltaic power generator, the deceleration regenerative energy may be supplied to the battery. However, when solar photovoltaic power generation is available in a vehicle, fuel consumption in the vehicle may be more reduced if the deceleration regenerative energy is supplied to the compressor of the on-vehicle air conditioner. Thus, when there are two or more destinations to which deceleration regenerative energy can be fed, the criteria regarding which of the destinations should be supplied with the energy has remained unimproved.
Not only the vehicles mentioned above, but also those systems which are provided with two or more destinations to which free of charge energy can be fed, are in a similar situation. That is, in these vehicles and systems, there is room for improving the criteria regarding which of the destinations should be supplied with the energy.